Creative New

Via pinktentacle

Via itmedia.co.jp

As the use of e-money gains popularity in Japan, versatile FeliCa RFID readers that support multiple forms of electronic currency are popping up in convenience stores and vending machines, making it easier for users to pay with the swipe of a phone. Electronics giant NEC is jumping in on the action with a FeliCa payment terminal modeled after a life-sized android.

The robot — a prototype that NEC demonstrated at the recent iEXPO 2008 trade show in Tokyo — incorporates existing technology, which means a finished version can be produced and deployed at short notice. NEC hopes to land it a job at an amusement park selling entrance tickets to visitors with FeliCa-enabled wallet phones, also known as osaifu keitai.

To pay the robot, users simply select the appropriate e-money icon on the robot’s chest-mounted touch screen panel and then swipe their phone over the reader/writer embedded in the left hand. The robot can also be programmed to transfer electronic coupons and other data to the user’s phone when payment is made.

Other features include a camera system that can work with face recognition technology to identify and profile park visitors. If asked to do so, the robot can recommend specific attractions based on the person’s apparent age and gender.

It is unclear whether any theme parks have expressed interest in hiring the robot. If not, NEC could easily equip it with fingerprint scanners and put it to work at immigration counters to gather biometric data on foreigners in Japan. Tourists would love it.

Real-Time and 3D Vision for

Autonomous Small and Micro Air Vehicles

Via  newscientist

Via research.microsoft

Flying low to the ground is a pilot’s nightmare: buildings, trees, and power cables all threaten to put an early end to the flight. But now the first large robotic aircraft able to fly at low levels and weave around such obstacles has been developed by US engineers.Giving uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) this ability could aid military operations in urban areas, or help search-and-rescue efforts after disasters.Most UAVs do not have the capacity to sense and avoid obstacles at all - a significant barrier to their being allowed to fly in civilian airspace.But now engineers at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, have modified a commercial civilian UAV helicopter made by Yamaha to be able to see obstacles it encounters.The helicopter’s “eye” is a custom-built 3D laser scanner, which sweeps an oval path ahead of the 3.5-metre long craft. The scanner can detect objects as hard to see as power lines from 150 metres away.

Video:link.brightcove

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PICTURES: Northrop’s UAV demonstrator#1

Via flightglobal

Northrop was awarded the six-year, $636 million UCAS-D contract in August 2007 after its X-47B was selected over Boeing’s X-45N. The first of two demonstrators is scheduled to fly in November 2009, and the first carrier landing is planned for 2011.

The demonstrator has bays for sensors and weapons, each of the latter sized to carry a 900kg (2,000lb) Joint Direct Attack Munition or six 150kg Small Diameter Bombs. That would give an operational N-UCAS, with its 12-14h unrefuelled endurance, the capability to attack 12 different targets on a single mission, says Beard.

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Via popularmechanics

It could be a rule of modern urban warfare: Send the robot in first. After all, it’s better to risk an unmanned air or ground vehicle than an infantry squad. While the United States has already deployed thousands of robots in Iraq and Afghanistan, its allies are lagging behind. Following the lead of DARPA’s high-profile Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge, both Singapore and the United Kingdom are staging robotics competitions this August to develop their own autonomous war machines.

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by BlueToothKiwi

Via thenxtstep.blogspot

I have been trying out Microsoft Robotics Studio ever since version 1.0. Despite the shortcomings of the product (compared to NXT-G), I like what Microsoft is trying to do in the robotics industry - i.e. create one 3-tier interface that is standardised and can be used to work with most of the robot vendors - including iRobot and LEGO MINDSTORMS.
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By shoving objects around on a table, UMan figures out how they work.

Via technologyreview

To assist humans around the house, robots will need to be able to deal with the unfamiliar. But while researchers can preprogram robots to do increasingly sophisticated tasks, they face a much bigger challenge in teaching them to adapt to unstructured environments. A robot developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, however, is able to learn to use objects that it has never encountered before.

The robot–called the UMass Mobile Manipulator, or UMan–pushes objects around on a table to see how they move. Once it identifies an object’s moving parts, it begins to experiment with it, manipulating it to perform tasks.

video:MIT

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Information from millions of Web pages that use the animation software is now available to search engines.

Via technologyreview

The Web would be useless without search engines. But as good as Google and Yahoo are at finding online information, much on it remains hidden, or difficult to rank in search results. On Tuesday, however, Adobe took a major step toward opening up tens of millions of pages to Google and Yahoo. The company has provided the search engines with a specialized version of its Flash animation player that reveals information about text and links in Flash files. It’s a move that could be a boon to advertisers, in particular, who have traditionally had to choose between building a site that’s aesthetically pleasing and one that can be ranked in a Web search.

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Via businessweek

Students at Art Center College of Design created their visions for the “Next Lunar Rovers” in a transportation design project sponsored by NASA. The design brief, which tasked students with designing the optimal lunar rover for the next moon mission, called for the designs to support the unique functional challenges of such a vehicle while inspiring everyone that sees it to want to go for a drive on the moon. The designs were also meant to serve as an icon to jumpstart interest of the public in lunar expeditions. Here are the student’s proposals for such a vehicle.

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Via smart-machines

Zappos.com is going robotic with the use of robots to handle some of their warehouse work. The company has bought a Kiva Mobile Fulfillment System from Kiva Systems. The system comprises of several orange-colored robots, called Kiva workers that can handle a plethora of different jobs involving inventory in warehouses.

Zappos will use these robots to speed up the process of finding, packaging and shipping a customer’s order. The robots will work in the company’s Kentucky warehouse and will streamline the process of getting customers’ shoes (which is Zappos’ main product) shipped.

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Via sciencedaily.com

“It is still a mystery, really,” says UBC computer science professor Prof. Dinesh Pai. “No one has ever completely mapped out the processes at the level of specific neurons, muscles and tendons.”

Pai is part of a UBC team leading an international initiative to do just that. “Essentially, we are reverse engineering the brain to produce the first working computational model of the complex interplay between our minds and our bodies.”

The project could produce great leaps forward in many areas, including medicine, industry and robotics. Although the project is just ramping up, the team’s mapping and modeling expedition is already producing some of the world’s most realistic computer simulations of the human body.

“Current robots have as much in common with human movements as helicopters do with seagulls,” Pai adds. “The challenges are similar, but they use completely different solutions.”

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